


These Things Happen

by Katthekitkat



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game), Predators (2010)
Genre: Dom - Freeform, F/M, HZD, Yautja, sub, yautja/yautja
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-07 22:02:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20469830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katthekitkat/pseuds/Katthekitkat
Summary: The setting is HZD, but this time there is no people, instead there is yautja.Zika is a carja craftsmen that mostly works with fancy weapons and silks. One day he is kidnapped, thought to be someone of importance and is abandoned in the wilderness. Lucky for him a warrior comes along and helps. This is their story.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Nadti belongs to a friend of mine.  
I do not own HZD

Rocking back and forth in a wooden box, Zika knew he was about to be sick. This sick bubbling just under his lungs, mouth sweating, and eyes near crossed. He knew he had to get out of there or things where about to turn nasty.

“Oh, come on! Why are we the ones packing the slut?” A shrill voice complains, almost as nausea inducing as the rocking.

“Because. You where the one stupid enough to let the twat in on our secrets!” This time a brutish, heavily accented voice booms in in time to the cart stopping.

“Why we sto—OH SHIT!”

Zika swallows his sick the best he could and attempts to look out one of the cracks in the boxes. He sees the two males draw their weapons in time for the gut curdling sound of a sawtooth’s roar to fill his ears. Zika flings a hand to his mouth in an attempt at silencing himself, not wanting to tip the thing off to his presence. By the sound of things, it was only one of the hellish machines, odd since they like to travel in twos.

Zika had no true clear clue as to how he ended up where he was, in a box being carted off by two shadow carjar to be sold or kept as a slave, now listening to them being murdered by a machine. Just earlier that day he was handing a large number of shards to a silks dealer for an order of fine silk he had been dying to get his hands on for months. He never made it home with them. The two, now most likely dead, men kidnaping him in an ally. All he could now was silently hide in his box.

Sounds of the sawtooth sparking from its injuries came close to the box, snapping Zika back to the very real reality that his little box might very well soon turn into his coffin. He had no means or way to break out of the box, he far to weak to do so. But even if he was able to break free, what was he going to do? Zika is a crafter, an artisan. The only self defense he knows is to kick for the groan and run like hell and that doesn’t work on machines. Zika is a dead man no matter which way and how he looks at it.

Hours later Zika snaps awake, haven dozed off, when he hears fighting outside. ‘_What the?’_ He mentally says to himself while he tries to look out a crack. The sun was gone, replaced by the moon and the stars. He couldn’t see much, but his heart did sigh with relief when he heard the machine die. ‘_Please don’t be shadow carja!’_ He begs to what ever god that might be listening when footsteps come straight for him, a large hand slapping the top of the box and causing Zika to yip from fear.

Fear soon gripped his lungs as the box was very literally torn apart. Zika shakes from fright, a blue painted face locking eyes with his. He wanted to scream but couldn’t, something about the face looking in at him breathed dominance and control. He dared not piss it off. The only sound he makes is a yip when the painted blue warrior reaches in and pulls him out as easy as one would pull a tool off a shelf.

The warrior casts Zika to the side, clicking their mandibles together in concentration as they look inside the box and through all the belongings on the cart. Silently Zika sat to the side out of the warriors way, looking around at the dead men and now dead machine. His nervous wouldn’t calm down no mater what, sawtooths traveled in two’s. So where is the second one?

“You’re not going to find much.” Zika clicks, holding his head down and dare not moving from the spot the warrior sat him in. “They where slave traders.” The blue figure looks at Zika with knitted brows and growls at him, turning slowly and stalking over to him. They stop with only inches to spare between them. Zika gulps and looks up at them, blood running cold at the sight of their deadly eyes pined on him like they where a weapon. “Sorry?”

The warrior growls at Zika and picks up their discarded weapon from earlier and starts to march on into the night. Zika doesn’t move for a moment, not until he heard the call of a watcher in the distance. He runs after the warrior coming up behind her and does his best to stay close to her. The warrior didn’t pay him no mind at first, not until they made their way into a patch of forest and Zika promptly became the loudest thing around. The warrior turns and growls at Zika once, trying to run him off but he doesn’t take the hint.

Zika gasps when the warrior climbed a tree and seemed to disappear among the treetops. “No! Please!” He calls out in frustration before frantically trying to climb a tree.

The sounds of a low metal growl behind him makes him still. Slowly he turns his head, looking over his shoulder. His green eyes widen in fear as he stares down the yellow light of the second sawtooth. Zika turns back to the tree begging, “Please help me! Please!” His hands clawing at the thick tree trunk, the sawtooth stalking up towards him.

The sawtooth roars, light turning red and charges Zika. Zika closes his eyes as though that will make things better and sobs as he waits for the pain of the attack to fill his body before death. But it never comes. Instead Zika opens his eyes when he hears the crunch of metal. A spear now lodged in the sawtooths’ hip. Zika wastes no time scrambling away from the machine.

The warrior leaps from the trees and onto the machines back, using metal blades to gauge out its lights and canasters. Zika new the thing to be dead when his ears where met by an ungodly silence. Zika looks at the warrior that now stared him down from where they still stood by their kill, mandibles held wide as they calmed their breathing. Zika breaths a sigh of relief, thankful to still be alive.

“Thank you.” Zika bows his head to the warrior as he stands. “You saved my life, and for that I am eternally thankful.” Zika picks his head up and gasps when he see’s the warrior walking away, already a good distance away form him. “Wait! Wait for me!” Zika fusses and chases the warrior down. “Hey you.” He reaches for them but earns himself the back of the warriors’ hand across his face and is sent flying to the ground. “The hell was that for?” He growls holding himself up with one and holding his face with one hand.

“Leave me. Go.” The warrior growls turning on their heal.

“Go?” Zika questions angerly. “Go where?” He stands up and tries to wipe away the dirt on his body. “I can’t go home. The shadow carja will just catch me again and this time kill me. Even if I did go home, I’ll just get picked off by some machine.” Zika growls when the warrior just keeps on walking. Pissed off, Zika runs out in front of the warrior and uses his body to keep them from taking another step. Zika doesn’t even flinch when the raise their hand against him, ready to hit. Instead Zika looks into their yellow and greens eyes with his jungle green. “You saved me just now. From the sawtooth. You really think you can just walk away from that? I now owe you debt.” Zika looks the warrior over and see’s that their spear had been damaged. “How about this.” He starts, an idea coming to mind. “You let me come with you and I’ll be your personally little crafter/artisan. I can fix that spear of yours and make it better than before. I can fix anything. I can even bring machines from the old world back to life. I am useful and you are a fool if you think you are going to just leave me in the wilds.”

“I am no fool.” The warrior booms looking down at Zika with a scowl.

“Then why not do it now?” Zika opens his arm, exposing his body to the warrior and steps back to give her a clean shot. “Take me with you and I will make sure your weapons are the best of the best and supply you with wonderful things that will make you the better than the rest. I know how you tenakth are. I can help you become better than the others. But it you want to, go on ahead. Kill me now.”

Zika didn’t expect what came next. The painted blue warrior grabs him by the throat and has him lifted in the air, using such speed he never saw it coming. “If I take you, you best not disrespect me or question me ever again.” They drop Zika and snarl down at him. “And for your own safety, you better stay true to your words. You slack in them in any way and I will cut you down and eat your flesh.”

Zika gulps in fear and nods his head, jumping to his feet so he could follow the warrior. “I will not disappoint you!” He calls after them, running to keep up.


	2. Chapter 2

Zika was dragging his tired feet by time he and the large warrior made it to a place where the land became soft and trees with magnificent roots ruled. Zika has never seen any land like this and feared the beast and wild peoples that had to have called it home. The sounds of snapmaws digging in the distance, the screech of scrapers, and the call of watchers made sure he didn’t fall behind.

Come night fall Zika was worn thin and mentally begging the warrior to stop, to let him rest. A beg that was answered when the warrior tossed their things under a tree and took a seat among the roots. Zika fell beside them and panted as his muscles pinged with pain.

“That had to have been the longest walk in all my life.” Zika grumbles allowed mostly to himself. He only looks at the warrior when he heard them digging through a bag and watches as they pull out a blue jar. Zika is curious but will have to wait for an answer, the warrior clearly wanted to make a fire first before attending to the blue jar.

Zika thought about reaching out and examining it himself, his inquisitive mind running at full speed. One glare from the warrior was all he needed to stay still and not touch the jar. There blue and yellow eye sparking the obedient side him to not move despite what his brain wanted to really do.

Fire made, the warrior sits directly in front of Zika, blue jar in hand. Zika still didn’t understand and didn’t want to when the warrior grabbed him by his leg and pulled him close. Close enough that he could almost clearly count all the stripes on the warrior’s neck, trace the pattern of their scales with his eyes, smell the herbal scent of their breath. They were to close.

The warrior seemed to not mind the closeness like Zika. Instead they where to focused on scooping the blue paste like contents of the jar into their hand. Zika made to back away but the warriors’ strong hand on his arm kept him from getting to far. They growled at him when he tugged against them.

“Be still.” The words boomed out of them.

Zika gulps and winces when they bring blue paste to his face and start to coat him in it. They also remove any of his accessories and finer silks he still wore.

“Hey!” Zika fusses. “Those are my things! You can’t do this.” He whines, mandibles held tight and brows pulled forward into a frown.

The warrior clearly didn’t care and continued to keep coating Zika’s face, neck, and shoulders in the blue paste. They stop when an even layer has been smeared on him and no more yellow and white could be seen. Zika thinks this is the end of it and makes to run away. The warrior keeps him seated and reveals another jar. This time it is pure black.

They take the lid off the jar and Zika is met with the strong scent.

“No.” He hisses knowing exactly what the stuff is. Oil. Oil from the hearts of all machines. The stuff could be used as a dye or even to write with.

The chuckles knowing Zika could say no all he wanted to them, it wasn’t going to change a thing. The warrior takes the oil and starts to coat Zika’s tress with it. Zika fights the entire time, crying no. He doesn’t stop crying until the warrior lets him go and he scurries away to the other side of the fire away from them.

“Why?” Zika asks upset and starts to pick his thinks up from off the ground.

“I marked you as mine. That way no one can claim you or kill you.” The warrior points to the markings painted on their face. “I gave you my markings. So now you are mine in the eyes of my people. You are safe. We will enter the clan tomorrow. You will not talk or make any sound.”

Zika couldn’t believe his ears. “I am not a slave.” The words fell out of his mouth before he could finish thinking them. “I am not yours to own.” He is clearly more upset than before, the oil in his tress and the blue paint staining his body forgotten.

“You will be killed if I didn’t do this.” They are blunt and uncaring in their words. “Carja are hated in my tribe. If you want to live, you will do as I say.”

Zika watches the warrior lay down and close their eyes in rest. He thinks about running after a while but trashes that idea. The entire reason he has followed this warrior for days, walking through tall grasses and unforgiving forest, is so that he can live. With out them he would be dead already and if he was to run, he will be dead before morning light.

“May the sun rest on my face one day.” He whispers to himself and follows the warrior into rest.


End file.
